“'Charity never faileth.' May this long-enduring Relief Society motto, this timeless truth, guide you in everything you do. May it permeate your very souls and find expression in all your thoughts and actions." ~President Thomas S. Monson

Sunday, March 23, 2014

In March we talked about the formula of make, bake, celebrate visiting teaching and sisterhood.

Here's an outline of the activity:

INTRO: cupcakes
are all the craze right now, but a cupcake is not just a cupcake.

The outcome of a moist, and tasty cupcake
with just the right sweetness, is dependent on its preparation. The same is true of visiting teaching. It's not hard to do, you just need to think
about what you are doing and the relationship you are trying to build.

As you
know, our ward RS focus this year, is to demonstrate our love for the Savior by
joyfully keeping our covenants. Visiting
Teaching, is the very essence of showing our love for the Savior and covenant
keeping.

Some of us have a formal
visiting teaching assignment, some of us may not, but either way, we have each covenanted
to keep the commandments and to bear one
another's burdens and watch over one another.

GROUP ACTIVITY: Divided into groups by table.
Find 10 things you have in common
(no body parts of clothing items)

·How did that go?
Easy, hard? You can pretty much
find things in common with anybody.

Step 1. MAKE/READ THE RECIPE AND GATHER THE
INGREDIENTS YOU NEED (COME TO KNOW YOUR SISTER)

When you bake cupcakes you need to gather the
ingredients and know how they go together

oWhat is important to this sister? What are her hopes, fears, sensitivities,
talents, supports, concerns...

There are countless recipes for cupcakes. Each sister is unique. Figure out the ingredients you need to form a relationship with this individual
sister and begin to build trust and foster spirituality.

Our Primary President did this part and even wore a cute cupcake apron! She told some fun stories and it was nice to hear from her.

Her part was focused on watching over your sisters, just as you'd watch over a cupcake baking in the oven

Add your
own personalized touch of loving and enjoying her based on what you have
learned about who she is and what she needs!

Then we emphasized that we are simply counting the caring!

Sister Mary
Ellen Smoot, a former Relief Society General President, gave this counsel:

“My desire
is to plead with our sisters to stop worrying about a phone call or a quarterly
or monthly visit, and whether that will do, and concentrate instead on
nurturing tender souls” Mary Ellen
Smoot (Daughters in My Kingdom,, p 117)

Our Visiting Teaching Coordinator took a minute to explain what we enter into the system for visiting teaching. All we enter is if they had contact with a sister--doesn't matter what kind.

And that is our goal. We are not worried about counting the
mechanics of a visit and whether or not a message was delivered. We do care about the caring and relationship
building. What we want to count is the
caring! Let us know how you are watching
over and nurturing your sisters and what needs you learn of as you do this.

There's one more step left in our
cupcakes! We have to celebrate! (with
real cupcakes you celebrate by eating them, but we're not gonna eat our
sisters)

I love to
see sprinkles on top of a cupcake They
just make me smile because they look happy.

Whether
as the teacher or the teachee in our Visiting Teaching relationships, we have
experienced unexpected blessings or surprises.
Positive outcomes that have occurred.
Friendship and connections that have come from sharing sorrows and joys
together.

Take a
minute to recall one of those times and how has it blessed your life.

A few
sisters bear testimony or share experiences, we asked one sister to start us off, and she did great.

MUSICAL NUMBER: Sisters, Rejoice!

We ended with a beautiful song by Jenny Phillips. Some sisters prepared and practiced together. It was great!

REFRESHMENTS: Cupcakes!

At the end we gave everyone an empty pink cupcake box, the goal being they had to figure out how to build what goes in it for each of their sisters.